The Foreign Office fully share the State Department’s desire that there
should be a meeting of minds between us on this subject, and Jebb will of
course be ready to discuss the whole matter with you
[Page 400]
further.1 The Foreign Office have
indicated that he may be able to bring with him the sketch of a draft
resolution designed to give effect to the proposals which the Foreign Office
have in mind.
[Enclosure]
Paraphrase of Telegram Received From the Foreign
Office, Dated August 19th, 1948
We recognise and share the desire of the State Department to secure the
widest possible measure of acceptance in the General Assembly of the
majority decisions of the Atomic Energy Commission. Suppose, for the
moment, that we adopt the United States plan of procedure which, as we
understand it, is to concentrate entirely on this issue, and to procure
a two-thirds majority in the Assembly for a resolution (dealing solely
with the item on the Provisional Agenda comprising the Security
Council’s special report) endorsing the majority decisions of the Atomic
Energy Commission. We understand that in order to concentrate on this
aim (and for other reasons which include apparently some apprehension
about the record of the majority in the Disarmament Commission) the
State Department want to keep any discussion of disarmament in the
Assembly to the minimum if it cannot be altogether excluded.
2. We agree that it is likely (perhaps it should not be put higher) that
a two-thirds majority could be secured for such a resolution. We should
expect that it would provoke a heated debate, in the course of which the
Russians would argue along the following lines. Why, they would ask, was
this attempt being made to railroad through a majority decision on this
specific and isolated issue? This contrasted oddly with the marked lack
of enthusiasm for any discussion of disarmament in the Assembly. Is not
the reason that the Americans are anxious to get their own views
adopted, wind up the Atomic Energy Commission on the pretext that no
progress is possible, and thereby hang on to their own advantage in the
field of atomic energy? While, as regards disarmament, the Americans
have not felt any need to press for a decision one way or the other
because they are not interested in what happens in this field so long as
they retain the monopoly of the atomic bomb.
[Page 401]
3. We think that this would be an embarrassing situation to Have to face
and that it is the Americans who will be presenting the Russians with
the opening for it. We do not of course suggest that such charges could
not be answered. But it is true that the Americans have shown no great
interest in the Disarmament Commission (what running there has been in
that body has been primarily made by ourselves) and we think that the
impression created on public opinion generally might well be to credit
the argument in the last sentence of paragraph 2 above.
4. Whilst, therefore, we should have secured the wide backing which the
Americans (and we ourselves) desire for a concrete plan for atomic
energy development and control, the objective would be a relatively
limited one: it would be secured in the face of damaging attacks in
other directions: and what is, in our view, the root of the matter would
have only been partially tackled.
5. This root point is, as we see it, that progress in the United Nations
is not possible unless a real attempt is made to regard majority views
(especially when the majority is overwhelming) as something to which
individual views (unless it is a question of life and death or of one
party being put in a demonstrably unequal position) should in general
defer.
6. No such attempt is made at present. In the Security Council this
results in the abuse of the right of veto. In the atomic energy,
disarmament and Article 43 fields, the veto lies in the background, but
as the ultimate sanction of the recalcitrant minority, not as the
immediate issue which confronts us.
7. The immediate issue in all the three fields concerned (and hence our
reason for bracketing them) is that there is a strong or overwhelming
majority view on basic principles which the minority refuses to accept.
The atomic energy position is admittedly the most serious because of the
far more advanced work done on it, which could speedily be made a
reality if there were general agreement. But in all three fields there
is a clear split on basic points. It is this common aspect of the
position which so perturbs us. The matters concerned are of fundamental
and vital importance to all Governments, and if the minority choose to
stand on their rights, they are entitled to do so. But how then can any
progress be made? It should be clear from the work of all three bodies
(and we can stress again the real magnanimity of the offer embodied in
the Baruch Plan) that no attempt is being made by the majority to put
any country in an inferior position vis-à-vis the rest in these
matters.
8. If we take this general line we foresee the following advantage over
the American line of tactics.
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9. First, by taking the initiative ourselves on these general lines, we
should forestall any attempt by the Russians to claim that no real
attempt has been made to carry out the recommendations of the Assembly
Resolution of December 14th, 1946. Quite conceivably this may be a major
Russian intention as regards the work of the forthcoming Session.
10. Second, we should cover ourselves at our (or, rather, the Americans’)
weak pointy namely that there has been great vigour displayed over the
work of the Atomic Energy Commission, but very little over the work in
the other two fields. At least, in all of them
basic principles have been agreed by a majority and rejected by a
minority.
11. Third, we should in the course of our argument (and in the drawing of
any resolution) be able to request the Assembly specifically to endorse
the majority decisions of the Atomic Energy Commission and of the
Disarmament Commission (assuming the latter to be brought to the
attention of the Assembly) and thus to cover the main American
preoccupation.
12. Fourth, we should be able to try to conduct the discussions on an
objective basis (as an “all party” investigation into where the United
Nations has failed so far) and in this broader setting to avoid as far
as possible individual recriminations against the Russians which will
get us nowhere. The “wide open debate” would not be upon atomic energy,
but on fundamental problems of the United Nations: but in the course of
its development there would be a discussion of the “concrete record” of
the majority decisions of the Atomic Energy Commission as an illustration (to be followed by others) of the
situation described in paragraphs 6 and 7 above, not as the sole, even
if the most striking, example.
13. Fifth, we should try (and the procedural difficulties do not seem
insurmountable) to streamline the course of debate in Committee I so as
to have (a) a debate on the veto (as it emerges
from the report of the Interim Committee) and (b)
a debate on the triple field of atomic energy, disarmament and Article
43 security (linked together by the Resolution of December 14th 1946)
rather than (a) one on the veto, (b) one on atomic energy, (c) one on disarmament (whether proposed by the Russians or
arising from a special report by the Security Council) and perhaps (d) one on Article 43. All this might well save as
regards time and repetition of acrimonies with the Russians, without
sacrificing any major point of principle.
